History. 1 of 7: MPs found the government in contempt over the Brexit legal advice in December 2018, 21 days after the demand.
Hunch. In May, when the committee said files were being kept back on new grounds, MPs used an urgent question, not a contempt motion.
The contempt market resolves YES if between 5 November and 17 December 2026 the Commons decides a motion of contempt or privilege against the government or a minister over the Mandelson papers demand, with or without a counted vote and whatever the result. Threats and opposition statements count as NO, and so does a motion MPs never decide, judged on the Commons Votes and Proceedings and the Commons votes service with BBC News and The Guardian as backup.
We looked for cases where the Commons passed a demand from MPs outside the government for government papers, and checked the first papers that came back. We found seven such demands from 2017 to 2026. Four came from 2017 to 2019 and were about Brexit, and only the 2026 demand ran alongside a police investigation.